Pretend
by TheMockTurtle
Summary: Pre-Epilogue. Post Mockingjay. "I contemplate dying here sometimes. Just letting some random animal pick away at my body, but I know they won't let me-" Peeta/Katniss.


**Chapter 1**

**I can still remember the vague scent of blood and snow mingling in the air.** Intertwining into each other like a taunting concoction, wafting into my nasal passage. Mocking me and warning me that this would be a smell I wouldn't be able forget, I smell I cannot let myself forget. The smell lingers back to me every so often when I'm doing the basic day to day activity; well what I consider day to day. Lying on the sofa because I can't face the stairs where it led to her bedroom, passing out on the kitchen table from lack of sleep, or sleeping in the forest for days' notice until the rain consumes me and reminds me that I have to move. It creeps back to me the same way love crept to Finnick, it's morbid but every time I smell it, his voice chimes in my memory of the time I asked him if he always loved Annie. Though, the smell has no effect on me. I'm vacant already. There is no soul that lingers in me and this thing I call a mind is inactive, apart from the grotesque nightmares and images it teases me every night with, I no longer use it for thought.

I let myself wonder if that's why Annie gets so distracted, if that's why she stares off. I can't afford to stare off, when I do I'm greeted by the haunting images of the past; of the Games, of the war, and I just don't have time to thrash about in lunacy. I rather remain vacant, mindless, and expressionless- that way nothing can hurt me, just like how now nothing can hurt Pr- I can't say it. I can't even think the name. Freezing liquid is rolling down my face and I wonder if it's raining again, this jolts me back to my surroundings; the forest. How long have I been here this time? A day? Three Days? A week? Everything around me sinks back to my inactive mind, the tall green trees and the cloudless sky- The cloudless sky? I touch my face to the cold substance and see past my dirt coated fingers that tear residue is slowly rolling down my index finger. I've become so vacant that I can't even register the thought that I'm crying; mindlessly I'm crying.

My stomach gives a turn and I confirm the fact that it's probably been a day and a half out here in the forest- laying in solitude. At the beginning, my disappearances would send Greasy Sae in a frantic, sending Haymitch or a civilian from the Seam out to look for me, but after ruthless attempts to knock me out of it, after thrashing about in Haymitch's arms in reluctance to go back home, they realized I eventually always show up alive back in my home.

Home… this doesn't feel like home. This feels just as empty as I am. Furniture may line the insides and water may be pumping through it giving it life, but it's empty. There's no laughter, no broth cooking by the hands of my mother, no Pr- her coming home from school. It's just me, empty, within an emptier vessel.

I contemplate dying here sometimes. Just letting some random animal pick away at my body, but I know they won't let me die, if I go further than a week laying on the ground of this forest Haymitch would surely put me in the hands of someone else to be monitored night and day, to make me converse, and somehow bring me back to life. So, dying isn't much of an option. Instead, I'm trying slowly every day: I reject some meals. When they don't forcefully run a bath for me, I sit in my filth like I am right now. I even go through days without sleeping trying to tire my mind until I break. It's a hard process, but it's the best I can muster in my vegetative state- in the barrier of protection they have formed around me.

I just know that whatever I attempt, be it throwing myself off a tree or setting my house on fire, I will always be saved. Me, who has killed and put myself in front of everyone else, will always be brought back to life even if it means every limb of my body has been torn away and I am incapable of breathing on my own, I didn't deserve the medical attention, she did, she who has healed and bared only laughter and kindness to everyone around her. The tears around my face are flowing so fast and heavily they slip into my ears and muffle the sound of the ruffling tree branches.

I lay immobile for a few more hours and decide that it's time to switch vegetable area. I have to go feed Buttercup the pork stew that Greasy Sae surely left on the dining table yesterday evening anyway. I leave my bow and arrows at the outline of where I laid, all arrows intact and accounted for, and me retuning back with no game. I find no pleasure in hunting anymore since I'm no longer anyone's provider. I'm not striving to keep anyone alive aside from Buttercup and he can have the stews and soups that Greasy Sae brings. She's very kind to give up a bowl or two for me, especially now that I bring no game for her. If she only knew that occasionally- well, majority of the time, it would be Buttercup's lunch and dinner, though I'm sure she knows I'm not the one eating them anymore. I've carelessly left the bowl close to Buttercup water bowl once or twice. She's made a subtle comment about this and my need to eat, but I remained unresponsive just as I am with everyone else. Regardless, she's kind enough to keep supplying me with at least two bowls a day.

Unlike Peeta, I take a shaky breath as I think of the name, warring off all thoughts and memories that flow in the name, who has clearly taken the message that either I don't want help or I want to die. One morning before lifelessly exiting my house with plans to lie in the forest for a month, my boot accidentally caused a strange soft thud to roll down the front steps of the house. Cautiously I looked down to where the peculiar sound came from and saw a loaf of bread half wrapped in paper. Immediately, I knew where it came from and who it came from. Eyes widening, pulse quickening, and hands sweating I couldn't muster the idea of Peeta's action. My mind was lazy and inactive after lying on the dining table for days that at the sight of this… this… bread, this act- it set me back days in my plan to remain emotionless and thoughtless. Quickly after debating the idea of picking it up or leaving it where I accidentally let it roll, I bent over with much effort that a malnourished body could muster and managed quick steps back in the house.

That day I obviously did not execute my plan of lying in the forest for a month on end; instead I sat on the sofa and examined the loaf of bread in my hands the whole day. I felt it go from broiling hot, to lukewarm, until finally stale and cold as the day respectively went on. I sat there, unmoved by Greasy Sae and her two bowls of stew and by the darkness that enveloped me at night. Then dawn peeked through the windows. Hastily as if I finally found life within me, I ran out the back door and next door to the pen where Haymitch kept his geese, and as if it were on fire still, I threw the bread into the pen where the hungering geese attacked it mercilessly.

I'm sure Peeta must've seen this, not me running like a lunatic to pitch his bread, but the geese making a commotion over the bread he no doubt intended for me to pick away at because after that day there wasn't another loaf of bread on my doorstep.

It takes a good deal of effort for me to regain any sort of balance or composure as I make my way past every tree. Since I'm so weak and frail at this point, what usually would take me an hour to get out of the forest now takes me at least three. By the time I'm out night is falling and trudging through the village is an effort in the quickly dropping temperature. Fall is on the brink of arriving and my breath is already fairly visible in front of me. My hands tucked their exposed selves underneath my armpits, my arms crossing until I reach my doorstep. I stop to listen to the quiet Victor Village, every house is dark and uninhabited; no motion or sign of life is audible or visible. Always except for one occasional light that comes from Peeta's kitchen, it's the only light I ever see on in his home. Haymitch pretends to be dead and I mimic his action. Except for Peeta, in the morning there is a graceful aroma of baked bread, but the light and the aroma is the only sign of life I have seen from him.

I don't ever see Haymitch or Peeta, not in the square or on the village paths as I walk back home after my hours or days of solitude in the forest. The last time I saw Haymitch was when he was forcing me to come back home from the forest, trashing about in his arms. That was about two months ago and Peeta… I hadn't seen Peeta since. I unwillingly find the energy to rack my memory for the last time I saw his figure bound anywhere in my line of vision. It was definitely before the bread incident a month ago, possibly when he got back from Capitol and he was planting the primrose bushes along my house- no, I rack my brain further, there was one time after the primrose bush incident, but I can't bring myself to agree if what my eyes saw was real.

After one of my aimless walks in the forest he was sitting on a bench at the far off corner of the square. He didn't see me, he couldn't have, if at all it was him, but he was somber looking. He was watching straight down at his shoes, hands clasped in between the spread area of his knees and made no movement, acknowledged nothing, and looked like he had been there for hours. I didn't approach him; I waved the thought entirely from my thoughts of what he possibly could be doing or what he could be thinking. I would tell myself that I was thinking- I was caring again and to keep moving because I had an empty home to attend to.

I pull my stare away from the light that's coming from my neighbor's kitchen and drag my tired limbs through the front door. No doubt there is Greasy Sae's bowl of soup or stew on the dining table from last night or possibly from tonight when she hadn't found me passed out in the kitchen. I don't bother removing my coat or boots; instead I make my way to examine exactly how long ago the stew was delivered. Looking at it closely and testing the temperature with my fingers I feel that it definitely was not anywhere near recently delivered, which means I have to get rid of it before Greasy Sae makes her way through my front door. I look for Buttercup but his horrid face is nowhere to be seen, I make for the sink and let the content of meat cubes and thick broth flow down the drain. I leave the bowl where it is in the sink and make for the living room sofa where I will spend the rest of the days curled up and staring blankly at the wall, praying for no thoughts and no sleep.

The house is dark, after another hour and a half the neighborhood is dead quiet and I hear the faintest crickets outside the window. Greasy Sae has not stopped by and I'm beginning to let the idea seep in that she may have given up on me.

'Good,' I think, 'sooner the idea that I just want to die the better.'

But wishful thinking has never been a forte of mine as she raps on the front door and without further need for permission makes her way into the living room. She sees my figure curled up and typically unresponsive and continues her everyday routine with me.

She asks if I ate, I don't respond. She asks if I have seen the new boutiques that have been opening courtesy of a few District 8 citizens who are trying to get away from the their District. A District that has, no doubt suffered the worst out of all of us, but I don't respond. She continues to update me on the new things they are building and the progress of the rebuilding. She says the school will be open just in time for the New Year.

I shut her out after this, school… she would have been able to go back to school, to have studied, now that she had all the opportunities to be that doctor she whispered to me one time. I manage to bring myself together in my motionless state just in time to hear her say:

"We've also managed to get the post working back and forth through the trains, it makes its rounds every two weeks or so." She's bustling in the kitchen with the mess I've made, "But I'm sure they're just exaggerating, it will probably take months before the flow of letters and packages are evenly distributed." Her tone ends on a cautious one as she comes to a halt with whatever noise she's been making in the kitchen.

That's when my muscles tense, I'm almost certain that's the tone that someone uses to tell me something they're afraid to let me know about. Dr. Aurelius has used it a fair amount of time with me and Haymitch has had his hand in the work as well. So, what exactly does Greasy Sae know that I don't? Although that question is debatable since I've pulled myself away from the world entirely, the curiosity almost brings me to speech.

Greasy Sae steps out of the kitchen and cautiously steps in front of me, I don't waver though, I lay still and vacant. My heart is thumping in my ears, she never gets this close to me and her tone was not helping.

She starts again, "The letters, girly," she takes a shaky breath and reaches inside her coat, "A mass amount came in yesterday, and well, I would've gotten it to you sooner but you- yeah…"

I think I'm trembling but I'm uncertain since she makes no motion to back away from my figure. The anxiety almost reaches breaking point until I let my eyes dart to the yellow envelope she holds in her boney hand.

"This came for you…" She looks lost as if what to do with it then hastily puts it on the coffee table in front of me, "The mail carrier he- uh, he wasn't acquainted yet with the rebuilding of the houses and all and gave me a fair amount of letters to carry and hand out to those he couldn't find addresses to." She falls silent and I feel instantly deafened by it.

There was a letter, for me? Unwilling thoughts race through my mind, sparking dead and inactive ideas and possibilities as to what it could be. I think Greasy Sae saw my eyes widen because she begins to back away toward the door.

"Don't forget to eat!" she hollers as she possibly runs past the door frame closing the door behind her. She was probably scared I was about to blow up and attack anything in sight. I can't blame her I would also be afraid of anyone in my state.

I eye the coy dainty yellow envelope in my plain eyesight. It sits so mockingly on the coffee table as if crying for me to touch it, to read it, to fill me in to what Greasy Sae must have been so nervous to let me in on.

An hour or so passes as I still lay with my arms tucked into me and my eyes rarely blinking, staring at the envelope in the dark, as if scared it was going to grow legs and flee or viciously explode.

Explode.

I fall numb, possibly even number than what I already feel. The thoughts of the envelope… of the letter have already let thoughts spin in my mind endlessly- that they have opened the gateway to remember possibly everything.

Angry and hastily I sit up. Feeling the emotions rush back into my body as blood would rush to an area cut off of blood flow, I snatch the envelope of the letter as quickly as I would have in a feast or at the Cornucopia and let my eyes strain in the dark.

The faint typewriter letters let my eyes read 'District Two'.

My heart picks up pace, my eyes search rapidly along with my trembling fingers until they land on the information I was searching for.

After months of not using my voice, the strum of my vocal chords let's a faint hoarse whisper escape my lips, "Gale".


End file.
